85

VOTING ENIGMA

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s our political system.  They’re doing the thing in Iowa, New Hamp.  and other states which seems to have something to do with who will be our next President. (Think Trump with Sarah Palin!),   I called upon my close sources (Google) to clarify what in hell is going on.  You see, in my day, each Party had a convention when all the politicos got together, got  drunk, and had a hell of a monstrous party, and nominated one of their lessor criminals to represent them against the other party, who did the same. It’s always better to be a senator or such as you don’t seem to have to go to work for the next year, until the election is over. Anyway, a caucus is a bunch of people arguing ,waving around, then taking a hands up vote, then giving it to the ‘Delegates to carry on. There are about a dozen states that do the caucus bit and the rest do closed primary, semi-closed primary, open primary and semi-open primary. Well, I was going to give you a rundown of all the ramifications of this fucked up system (which by the way, is not considered or supported in our Constitution)  but I got lost in the morass of irrationality and I just give up.

There are some actual issues to be addressed other than abortion,  for instance ,  here is what the Libertarians think is important;

Gay marriage, Cannibus Legality, End  War on Drugs, Gun control, Police accountability, Anti-Surveillance, International Wars, Economic & Fiscal Issues,  Government Debt, Taxation,  Free Marketplace, Open & Inclusive Political Process,  Poverty, Alternate Currencies (Bitcoin, etc.),  Voter ID,  Problem of only Two Parties.  Immigration.

Anyway, it’s Martini time. I’m outa this blog today.

Back on the job with a ;

BOOK REPORT

Try QUEEN OF THE SOUTH by Arturo Perez-Reverte. From the Drug Lords of Sinaloa (El chapo, Batman) to the European Drug kingpins, this little gal became the Top Dog in drug running from Morocco to Europe. A true story (more or less) but will keep you on the edge of your page. South refers mostly to Spain and Gibraltar. Shipping cocaine by the ton!

NOT FORGOTTEN MODERN                

                 

Just had word that one of my 1960’s work of art (House to you) has been designated for exceptional and outstanding historic design integrity. Located in the hills of Laguna Beach (1968 San Remo Dr.) it was called “The water tank” and was one of the first houses to cause a law suit with the neighbors because “it didn’t look like a house”. Well, you can’t have everything, you know.

THE EAGLE HAS DIED

Along the same lines I see one of the Eagles Band has died. I gave them an early start as I hired them for a concert- fundraising for my “Citizens Town Planning Assoc.” in Laguna Beach in the ‘60’s. As usual with Langworthy Economic Projects, hardly anyone showed up and we lost about $10,000.  I formed our group to fight a Freeway that was being planned through the heart of Laguna. We somehow prevailed and I believe we were the first to stop a freeway from ripping the heart out of a town. Later, the San Francisco Embarcadero freeway suffered the same fate.

GAZOLE & PETROL

For those of you who will be traveling to Europe, dodging Islamic Terrorists, you will probably be renting a car between Train trips. You will unconsciously put gasoline into a Diesel car and I want to assist you on “ what the fuck do I do” scene.  Now I’ve been to Europe many times and rented many Fiats and Peugeots but only once have I gazed up a diesel engine. Hopefully, you will come to your senses before filling up the tank with gas and can top off with diesel like I did. I can tell you not to worry if you’ve only but about a third of a tank into the diesel, as it will run as long as you keep topping up with diesel every chance you get. But last week I read a bit by Click & Clack about doing this. They say that putting diesel in a gas engine the car will go a few miles and stop dead, so when the gas is used up, the engine can’t combust the diesel fuel.  It will cost about a grand to clean out all the lines, etc.

  And putting gas in  diesel can be just as bad as the diesel is also a lubricant so the engine starves the fuel-injection pump of lubrication. Also due to different combustion properties, the gas detonates too early in a high compression diesel and can cause a lot of miss-firing so you may have to change some parts as well as purge it all.  But from my experience, and as the Brit who pulled into the station at the right time said “I say, we used to put a bit of the gas into our diesel up in Alaska to keep it from freezing”. With that , we rolled on to Nantes without any problems except a speeding ticket which arrived a month later back home. Watch out for those damn automated speed traps!

MILLIONS & TRILLIONS

Our politicians are tossing around terms like three Trillion, etc. as if it is not a large number.  I decided I should get some idea of how much that is. A trillion dollars is a shit load of dough.  If you spent 10 million a day for 273 years that would be one Trillion. That is an incomprehensible number.

A million is equal to a thousand thousands (1,000 x 1,000)

A billion is equal to a thousand millions (1,000 x 1,000,000)

A trillion is equal to a thousand billions (1,000 x 1,000,000,000)

For a really good visual of all this go to www.pagetutor.com

 Or even better:  www.demon.ocracy.info

Which brings me to my favorite Things I hate”.  Most of us haven’t noticed that our Federal Gov’munt has stopped making all our currency probably due to some misguided  aspect of the “  War on Drugs”. Our Drug Tzars  , in all their wisdom, and screw us citizens, has determined that the drug pushers ( Let’s not talk about the Big Pharm here) would stop buying drugs if all they had was $100 bills to deal with. Well, hell, all we have to do is print up zillions more $100 bills to make up for the lack of larger currency. (This scam was probably thought up by the money paper industry).  It wasn’t that long ago (well, maybe it was) when I was a builder in Covina that my client, the inventor of Go-carts, paid me every two weeks in cash with four or five $1,000 bills (I was also the Contractor). That was sometimes a problem when I took my grubby crew to Clifton’s Restaurant and had no small change. (Do you have change for a thousand? See my book “Education of an Architect for the fun details).

And why does the United States always have to be at War? The War on Poverty, The War on Drugs . How about a War on War?

Also notice we always have Tzars in charge of it all? 

BAN VALENTINE’S DAY !

I knew I wasn’t the only out there who cannot, will not , be a party to the bane of my life “called “Valentine’s Day”, the Prostitute of Holidays,  where every poor guy is sucked into a HUGE GUILT TRIP until he spends a lot of his hard earned cash on his significant other.  I’ve just come across a Website called “Ban Valentine’s Day”!  Yes, there are other souls out there who can see thru the flimsy pseudo love of the commercialized version of love.  Several countries have actually banned celebrating the damn day (Russia, Iran, Malaysia, etc.)  Some High Schools in U.S. have banned it also. Hurray for our side !!  I have just found out that there is a Special Hell for guys who do not Kow-Tow to the miserable gift giving to someone. I think it’s called “ Saint Valentine’s Purgatory” where you spend the rest of your miserable after-life buying gifts for people you hate. So, join me and go to Facebook and find the “ Petition to ban Valentine’s Day” of Scott Manning.

83

MANIFESTO   (To quote Lord Byron;)

I hardly know too if not quite alone am I

In this small hope of bettering future ill

By circumscribing, with some slight restriction,

The eternity of hell’s hot jurisdiction

LIFE IMITATES LIFE

I keep harping about how much of our Federal income is spent on the war machine, but recently I came across an article of ancient Greece that seems to emulate our current dilemma.   We’re talking about the year 450 BC. Athenian society had been geared to war for so long that many breadwinners had never known a time when they could not earn  a summer’s income by rowing the triremes (Three levels of oars on warships).  Peace was going to mean some under-employment, but Pericles and his group had no doubt foreseen this , and among their remedies was a public building program, beginning with  the great temple long projected on the summit of the Acropolis ( The Parthenon).

 Just imagine! We could tear down the Capitol in DC, and build a really worthy architectural gem that might bring us into the 21^st century.  Or maybe demo the White House and build a really swell residence for the Ruler of the World and his family.  Or, alternately, we could build schools for girls in the Mid-East like the guy (3 cups of Tea) but he got his ass in a sling due to what?  Or was he just getting in the way of killing?

HAIRY POTTER                   

Brooks Pottery shop/Studio, Laguna Beach

           

                                                      

All during my professional life I have traded services with my clients. I probably did my first of probably 15  restaurants  trade in 1960 when I designed a Smorgasbord in Laguna Beach.  Right after  that, I designed a pottery shop and store in Laguna Canyon for the Brooks, who introduced me to ceramics. My first pieces looked like large (12 16”) river-run  stones with a glaze similar to jade. These were very thin, paddle constructed weed pots with a small slot in the top.  We didn’t take photos much in those days, only of architecture. My interest peaked in about 1980 when Karen Kozlow and I started the “Sonoma County Potters Guild” in the back of the Roseland Post Office in Santa Rosa. A year later we moved to Graton where we built two roll-in Kilns and work areas for ten potters. This was a pre-cursor to our renovating the old condemned apple dryer across the street into the Atelier One Artist Studios.

 While I have your attention, below is a primer of how to attach an ergonomic handle to different size cups.

 Large cup.Heavy, support with lower finger, and index. Thumb holds it steady.

Add caption

 Small Espresso cup. Just a spot to squeeze or pinch. not much weight. Just thumb & first finger.

Medium Espresso. Note support by first & third fingers. 

 Thumb steadies.

ON A HOT DAY IN GHENT, BELGIUM    

A cold day in Honfluer, France, waiting for crepe with cognac & cider

ON A COLD DAY IN HONFLUER, FRANCE waiting for my crepe with cognc & cider

      

      BLOGMASTER NOTICE  - HELP!  I need a tutor for my new Kindle ebook reader.  If anyone out there can help me find a way around in it, I would be very thankful.   Example: I’ve ordered my own e-book (Education of an Architect) twice ($.99) but I can’t find it or get it to my Kindle .

                                                                                   

THE BURNING QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR: (I’ve been saving these up)

1.     Body hair; I can understand that we have left-overs from full body hair (from our brothers, Chimpansee?)  but why under arm pits ? (Helps sweat disburse?) Eyebrows (Same ) Head;( protect from cold & Ozone?) Beard? (Just to look cool?) but why over our genitals? It kind of works like a fig leaf for the girls, but doesn’t do much for guys, unless he has a really teenie weenie.

Now I’ve viewed Michelangelo’s David a couple of times plus many more of the replica outside in the Piazza Savronola and have missed the fabulous way M. rendered David’s pubic hairs. I’ve left off most of his penis so you ladies could concentrate on the fabulous way he carved the hair.  Is it just me?

TO CONTINUE;

2.      Why do males have nipples and no tits?

3.      Bible conundrums; Who was John and what was his purpose?  Didn’t he lose his head somewhere? And why?

4.    Where did the Jews come from when they went to Egypt?  Were they just nomadic Arabs like all the rest of the folks in the area? When did they get to Egypt and why? How many were there? 1,000? 10,000? Had to be before 1300 BC . Can’t we just see their heritage by checking DNA with the Palestinians?

5.    Do blind people see in their dreams? Do the deaf hear? Do the dumb speak? (They do when Trump opens his mouth).

6.    If testicles are so important for reproduction, how come they were built on the exterior of the body? Animals also. Maybe just so Michelangelo could do such a great job of rendering them in marble? (See above).  

HERE ARE SOME THINGS I HATE

I’ve almost forgotten why I started this blog about nine years ago. Don’t forget, you can go to the Archive list on the right side of the Blog and look at any one of my scribblings.

 I was exposing idiotic things that I hated but have kind of fallen down on the job of keeping up. But recently I visited the hugely expensive Seattle Library by Rem Koolhouse, one of the current Darlings of super & expensive Architecture and  I saw that our libraries (Even Sebastopol)  have subscriptions to about 60 magazines plus all the major newspapers of the US.  I can only hope they get all those free, although, it seems illogical in our economy to do so. But it does work well for all the Street people to keep up on the latest happenings in their little miserable world, at my expense of course.

I was just reminded that Pres. Reagan (The Gipper!) had this wonderful idea to stop the atomic missiles Russia was about to throw at us , he called it “Star Wars”, remind you of anything? Anyway, this program costs us 1.5 Billion dollars and it was a failure , It couldn’t work. Now that’s three times our annual budget for all Military spending. Is anyone in charge there?

You’ve heard me ranting about the architecture of the Sydney Opera House .  I still see everyone drooling over it but I wonder if it was the pre-curser to all the current Architecture which has departed from the Organic concept of “Form & Function are One” or “Form follows Function”?  In other words, you won’t see a short necked  giraffe , will you? Gehry, Calatrava, Hadid all follow Jorn Utzon’s formula; Way, way over budget(10 times?), no relationship to the use or function of the structure,  just a way to get one of your sculptures out there  on a massive scale. Let’s re-visit these buildings in 50 years and see if they look so swell.  Portlanders are already to demolish Graves’ Portland Building, (c. 1985?) a really stupid execution of a problem. Hopefully, they will save the large sculpture of Portlandia.

 

YOGA GIRL

For those of you that are fans of the YouTube video “Whole Foods Parking Lot”, the guy has a new one out there called “Yoga Girl”.  Wonderful stuff.

DON’T BLAME COLUMBUS

It’s become very hip these days to blame C. Columbus for the denegration of the American Indian. The poor guy never even set foot on North or South America, he was just trying to get to the Orient of India.  It was a lot farther than he imagined to his goal, but the Amercas got in the way. Why don’t you blame Cortez or the Spanish rulers or the Catholic Church?  Colombo  was just a minor player in the saga of the development of Earth, so just look in your history books and your globe,  you’ll see what happened to all indigenous folks who got in the way of taking over their land.  Count your blessings, Tonto, at least you’ve got a monopoly on the gambling casinos.

84

TINY HOMES

Every once in a while this fallacy comes around and local politicians get all excited about how little families can live in little housies and live happily afterward.  But let’s get real. If we want to help with the problem of just housing folks why don’t we start by seeing how much  is really earned by the poor families? I’m not talking about students who are usually included it these studies, just people who could work a full time job.

Let’s start with how much a wage earner takes home at the bottom of the pile. You can always get a job at Burger King, and let’s assume the minimum wage has got up to  $15 an hour. That’s $120 a day, $720 a week, $3600 a month ($43,200/ yr). Now I don’t know anything about what is taken out of his paycheck for Workmans’ Comp, Health Ins., etc, etc, but in our perfect world, he gets it all until his wage gets to a certain level. We are talking about an Ideal world, aren’t we, like Socialism?).

Let’s talk about a single person first, no kids.  What can we do with him (her,it).?  If his take-home is $3600 per month, housing should be no more than  a third or $1200 . That’s his rent.  He may need help to pay for a security Deposit of $1800 (In case he trashes the place in a Heroin or Cocaine Rage) so maybe there is a place where he can work nights to save up for it (It has to be about equal or greater that the rent).  Let’s give him a small studio apartment in a multilevel building , max 3 stories, no elevator (Too many encounter problems). Now we’re  getting into the realm of City Planning, or how is this poor sap going to park his car where it won’t get trashed, etc. Is he near a bus route?  Where is the Whole Foods Market, Pharmacy, etc.? Is there a bike locker?

Let’s leave him in his snug little pad and look at a young (or old) couple who have a couple of kids. Here’s where life gets sticky. One of them can’t work (Take care of kids)  unless it’s a night job. Let’s just say that the State has a Tiny Tot pre-school Day Care plus  schools for up to Junior High?  If the State ran it, it would be more costly but let’s say about an average of $700 per child per month. It would be free but paid by Income taxes (We are getting out of the War business, in my World).  (There must be precedents in Europe or somewhere). Then, both could work and earn and now pay $2400 a month rent. But now that they make more, they will have to have more taxes  taken out of their check Old Age Security, Health Ins., Workmans Insur.)  as they don’t seem responsible enough to handle the money. About now, they’re making a lot more than I and my wife do, but then, we’re self- employed, and we don’t count. So now let’s build them a 3 BR (small) with compartmental toilet in our 4 level apartment house with a glass elevator on exterior for safety.

Let’s not even discuss their  buying property or a house because  you don’t make enough money to own your own, so  just forget it. Although, here’s a problem, sometimes the mortgage payments are the same as a rental Apartment, it doesn’t seem fair. However, don’t forget all the big property tax bill, insurance, etc. etc. has to be added to your costs.

Lets go back to the teeny house concept and see why that doesn’t work out.  Alrhough It’s the ultimate American Dream sequence; A house on property (This could be a rental also?.) 

Here are some of the problems to do this.

1 Buy the property.

2.  Approvals, Engineering, Planning, ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REVIEW,  don’t forget the neighbors and their property values.

3.  Borrow a whole lot of money.

4.  Install infra-structure (Sewer, water, roads, lighting, drainage, power, gas  etc, etc.).At this point you will have to pay $10,000 for sewer service.( per teeny house)

5.   Now you can build  ONE house for one person  on a lot? Or a three story apartment building. Housing maybe 24 families?

6.  You’ll have to convince the Planners to forget all the Development Fees; around $15 to 20 thousand dollars for each dwelling unit.

7.  Surely the Guy developing this should get a 10% profit for all his work, sometimes several years of his time (and all the folks who work for him).

8.  So how much is your lot going to cost you? .Now comes the real problem; DENSITY.  The cost of each unit will be how many units can you build, let’s assume there are no Zoning restrictions here.

Who are these HOMELESS? Why are they homeless?  According to my son who spent two weeks living among them on the streets, it’s like this;  1/3 are too into drugs or alcohol, 1/3 are just plain crazy ( We keep closing our nut houses), 1/3 are in transition and really want to get into a small place to live which they can afford.  I was really upset when they demolished the Vagabond Hotel in Coddingtown as it would have made a great place for a hundred small families.  But, lo! It is being done in south Santa Rosa at a defunct motel. I wish him the best.

THE STEEL CUBES OF GRATON

AELIER TWO CONDOS  Back in 1990 I tried to build 14 condos across the street from my Atelier One building in Graton.. These would be metal cubes, partially finished inside. This would be a real Live-Work environment and fairly affordable at 100k at the time. I had a building permit ready but we could not get financing. All steel construction, colored  industrial siding with 50 year colors. Solar orientation, & hot water from sun.  Roof deck. 20’ ceiling! Who would want to live there for $100,000?

ATELIER TWO PLAN & SECTION

 

THE SEARCH FOR  AGE OF THE EARTH

Obviously I wasn’t the first one to wonder how old the Earth was. But who first called it Earth?

450 BC  Aristotle                                          Eternal

70 BC  Lucretius (Roman Emperor)         1500 BC (As Records only as far back as Troy)

Archbishop Ussher                                     23 October, 4004 BC (A real believer in Bible)

           ( Was that began or completed, Bish.?)

1770   Compte de Buffon                           75,000 to 186,000 years

1859   Charles Darwin                                306. 6 Million

1897   Lord Kelvin                                        24 Million

1900   Sam. Haughton                                2.3 Billion. To 153 Million

1904   Rutherford                                         700 million

1926   Arthur Holmes                                  4.55 Billion (Closing in)

1930   John Joly                                           89 million  (Git outa here!)

2016   Current  GOT IT !!!                            4.56 Billion (from meteorite material)

But wait !  There’s more. Do we wait for the age of the Solar System?  Find out when the Earth-Moon system formed? Do we wait until we find out when the earth’s core was made?  ?  ?

ALUMINIUM?

The Brits say ”Aluminium”,  Americans say “Aluminum”, why?

When Davey first isolated the element, he called it aluminum. Four years later he changed  it to ‘aluminum’.  Americans adopted the new term, but Britishers disliked aluminum, pointing out that it disrupted the –ium pattern established by sodium, calcium and strontium, so they added a vowel and syllable.

MADAME CURIE

Died of  Leukaemia (radiation) in 1934. The real reason we know the age of Earth is due to her discoveries. Her papers, from 1890’s, even cookbooks, are too dangerous to handle. Her lab books are kept in lead-lined boxes and those who wish to see them must don protective clothing.

WHY WE GO TO DENTISTS  (Nitros Oxide) We have been told that using is abusing all our life but in 1800’s it was viewed slightly different.  Take the Akasian Society; they would put on laughing gas evenings in theatres where volunteers could refresh themselves with  robust inhalation and then entertain the audience with their comic staggerings and behavior. It was only about 1846 that anyone thought about using it as an anesthetic, ergo, that’s why our trip to the dentist is not as pain-full anymore, but more fun.

FAHRENHEIT  VS. METRIC

The difficulty of measuring temperature was due to the difficulty of making a glass tube accurate enough. A Dutchman, Gabriel Fahrenheit, a maker of instruments, solved the problem in 1717. But he calibrated the instrument in a way that put freezing at 32 degrees and boiling at 313 degrees. I suppose it wouldn’t make any difference if you were the first one doing it. However, by 1742 Anders Celsius, a Swedish astronomer, came out with the competing scale, making freezing point 100 and boiling zero.  But soon, someone finally got it right and reversed the scales. But us Luddite’s in the US aren’t going to be so swayed are we?  Celsius seems too metric for us.

BACK TO VERMEER

Around 1665 Robert Hooke, one of the great men of science, discovered miniature bodies (cells) with the latest in micro instruments, of about thirty times magnification.  However, about a decade later a Dutchman in Delft (One of my favorite existing  Medieval towns), started sending out exquisite drawings of objects using an invention of his, a hand held gismo of dowels and bubbles of glass. But this was a magnification of 275 times! His name was Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and he was so secretive he never let anyone see his instrument. He was helping Vermeer with his paintings , using a Camera Obscura. No one really knows how he (Vermeer) got such detail and Leeuwenhoek never let be known, as he was Vermeer’s executor.  Anyway he discovered protozoa, and counted 8,280,000 of these tiny beings in a drop of water. No one had any idea!  (Pass the Perrier, please!) Later, in 1683, he discovered bacteria, and the rest is history.